Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Sorghum from https://theafricanpotnutrition.com/2014/02/04/sorghum-a-nutrition-packed-african-grain/grain/

Gone forever are the days of theka theka (half, half)
sorghum and mapira flour offerings to Chauta, Namalenga, Mphambe at now extinct
Malawi rain shrines.But the grain seems
to be making a comeback to complement maize during the constant droughts caused
by the El Nino weather patterns.

Sorghum is a grain whose first recorded remains, dating
back to 8000 BCE, were found in the Nabta Playa archaeological site in southern
Egypt, writes Jane Summer in her article ‘Sorghum: The Must-have Gluten-free
Ancient Grani.’

In Sudan, sorghum was also used as offerings at temples
dedicated to Amun, a spiritual being they believed in. The British Museum website reports that
archaeo-botanical analyses of the mould shards excavated reveal that sorghum
was the grain used to make offerings, not wheat and barley, as was used to make
offering breads in Egypt.

However, pearl millet or black millet (machewere) was
also used to make some local bread or cake for offerings in ancient
Malawi. Online records show the Sudanese
farming it by 4000 BC before it spread to Egypt around 30000 BC and the rest of
Africa.

According to the only Sapitwa priestess in Malawi, Mayi
Cecilia Jarden, sorghum (mapira) was also used in ufa (flour) offerings
together with mawere (millet) while chikokeyani was the traditional beer put in
mtsuko (clay pot) near a sacred tree, and thobwa the non-alcoholic drink one.

Both beer and the non-alcoholic drink were made using
either millet or sorghum as well as for food offerings made during droughts. She says when the Portuguese came between the
1500 and 1600s the maize they brought was also used as flour offerings, to cook
nsima and for making some beer or liquor.

“Earlier ancestors didn’t know maize (corn) but makaka
(dried cassava) and sorghum and millet, among other things when cooking
nsima. The youth of today don’t know
these things and complain it sticks in the hand or is medicine, unlike in
ancient times when children ate it like sweets.”

Ancestors knew nsima ya mtandaza from cassava and nsima ya
mapira from sorghum which don’t need much water to grow and are healthy food
products.

Raw Cassava

In Mulanje, southern Malawi, nandolo (pigeon peas) was prepared like porridge
and a child would then drink water and feeling full, go to sleep. Cassava as in mtandaza was sticky like glue
(ulimbo) and was eaten with many things including bush ice locally known as
mbewa, explains Mayi Jarden, adding that dried cassava was pounded as in
kutibula or kusinja.

This issue was also raised by one of five journalists
invited by the US Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome, Italy for
meetings at UN agencies including WFP and the UN Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

In response to a question,
Alexandre Meybeck, an FAO food and security change officer, explained how
sorghum, compared with maize, is more drought resistant and has greater
nutritional characteristics. However, he said the yield is lower so
farmers produce less income from it so from a livelihood perspective there’s
not much profit.

“Ideally on your farm you can have a combination of sorghum and
maize for drought reasons. There are farmers in areas of Malawi who have
maize, cassava and sorghum. "This is precisely the trade-off between being
more productive….you take modern varieties of maize and you put fertilizers,
you have drought and you have nothing or being more resilient either as a
farmer or country you have sorghum, all varieties of maize which don’t produce
much and finally cassava” he said.

Research also shows that countries where cassava was
consumed had less impact on their food insecurity because the prices of the
cereals were linked to world markets.

Sorghum, the nutrition packed African grain, beyond
porridge and chibuku, is also made like popcorn, boiled together with sugar
beans (pinto beans) to make Nyekoe, a traditional dish from Lesotho and used in
place of “teff” to make the traditional Ethiopian Inuera”, writes Cordialis
Chipo, a registered dietician and founder of The African Pot Nutrition centre.